The Walking Dead Chronicles
by ArrudaNate08
Summary: When the world goes to hell, all you can rely on is family. set in Atalanta Georgia, during the end of the world, two brothers who've never gotten along must discover what brotherhood means. (All OC's no original characters. Please read and review! Rated M for language and violence. Please give it a chance)
1. Episode One: A New Day

Justin McCain watches as the huge firemen's axe, came down on the sleepwalkers. The axe was a full three feet long, was sharp as hell, and covered in the fluids and was held in the beefy arms and scarred hands of Jordan McCain, his brother.

The axe came down on the sleepwalkers forehead, and sunk down into its skull, matter of brain tissue spewing everywhere and Justin can help but feel disgusted by Jordan, as his more muscular bother swings the axe down and almost literally split the sleepwalkers head in half. The sleepwalker moaned softly and his legs crumpled, falling onto the hardwood floor. Blood oozed out of the sleepwalkers head and spread like water coming out of a garden hose. Jordan then twists the axe and, with a cracking sound jerked the red axe blade out of his frontal lobe.

Behind Jordan another sleepwalker gets to her feet and stumbles towards the sibling. Jordan then swings the axe up over his head and slices the sleepwalkers head clean off. Justin groans. He hates the sight of this. Nonstop killing has been the only thing the McCain brothers have seen and done the last 5 days since the cities fell to the sleepwalkers and the disease went global. And Justin hated every minute of the gut wrenching business. But it had to be done. Sure Justin knew that but be didn't want to know that. Didn't want to do it. That's why 4 days ago he got out of Atlanta to run from the walking pusbags. That's why 3 days ago he sent text messages off to every person he had on his contact list and discovered that all signal had been lost. And that's why 2 days ago he set out for the local police station to get his brother out of the Slammer. He simply wanted to be safe. Whether or not Jordan chose to cooperate was up to him.

That's also why this morning Jordan had made Justin pull over onto a hunting reserve to collect weapons and to have a place to sleep for the night. And now the two brothers were clearing out a hunting cabin to stay in.

Jordan swung the axe towards an approaching pusbag and the blade became stuck in his cranium. Jordan kicked the corpse and the things head slid off the blade and hit the floor with a wet thump. Justin winced. He hated that noise. He also hated the cabin, and his brother and the whole situation they were in. but they had to deal with what they had been handed even if they hated it. Even if Justin hated _him_.

Jordan brushed his hand over his forehead wiping the sweat and cadaver blood off, "that the last of them?" he asked.

Justin's eyes swept the large cabin. 'More of a mansion,' Justin thought. "Yeah, I think so." he said aloud. "I hope so."

"Better be." Jordan said, already settling down on the couch. "I don't mind killing the things, but you can only do it so long until you're tired."

"I'm going to go check upstairs." Justin mumbled, already annoyed with his brother.

"Whatever." Jordan sighed and got to his feet. "Where is all the booze in this place?"

* * *

Justin was almost shocked by what he found on the upper floor. The second floor was completely untouched. Nothing was taken or looted. as far as the brothers had seen from the downstairs everything had been taken. But upstairs everything was right where it was supposed to be.

He drew his only weapon, a C96 pistol that he had taken from his father. None one of the bullets in the clip had been used once.

'Huh. I said my father. Not our father.' Justin noticed. He didn't like to remind himself that he was related to Jordan. It was better to pretend that Jordan was some homeless veteran drunk that he had found wandering in the road, or a messed up alcohol addicted survivor that he had picked up in his Ford; Anything but Justin's brother.

When they were growing up, Justin had been the golden boy. He had been the baseball star, the athlete. Later in college he got a scholarship for law and went on to become a defense attorney. But Jordan was the kid in the neighborhood who nobody liked. That smoked cigarettes at 12 and drunk at 14. It wasn't like his parents -their parents- raised him that way. That's just how he was. He caused trouble for the sake of causing trouble.

Justin shook his head trying to clear away all the bad memories. He had a job to do.

Justin kicked open the door to the first room. it was practically empty, besides an old bedframe against the wall. The room was old, dusty and smelled like old people, a smell Justin didn't like. It reminded him of a soon to be death; like it was waiting just around the corner.

Justin moved on. The next room there was a desk and an empty closet. The floor was different. Instead of wooden floors there was a fuzzy blue carpet. Unlike the first room he had a good feeling about this room. Maybe if the brothers decided to stay for a few days here he would move the bed from the first room into this room.

There was one last room down the hall. A chill passed down his spine. There was something eerie about this room. This door. Justin felt his breath leave him. He sucked it in and put his hand on the door knob. He twisted it ever so slightly. He swallowed. Downstairs there was a sound of glass falling onto hardwood floor. Not breaking, just falling. Justin rushed down the stairs skipping two at a time and holding onto the rail. He turned the corner.

"Jordan what was-" he stopped short.

Jordan was passed out on the couch, snoring loudly, a bottle of liquor rolling on the floor near his hand.

Justin suddenly felt something. Anger. He felt anger at his brother. But he was angry at his brother all the time. Why would this be different? Because Jordan being drunk and passed out on the couch when Justin needed him, really needed him, showed Justin that his brother didn't care about anything anymore.

Justin threw a pillow that had been lying on the floor at Jordan. Jordan sat up with a start. "wha-?"

"What the hell are you doing?" Justin demanded angrily.

"What does it look like?" Jordan mumbled, his voice slurred from the drink.

"It looks like you're getting smashed when I need your help." Justin said his eyes narrowing.

Jordan waved his hand dismissively. "Naw your fine! Come on bro, have a drink!"

Justin's eyes flashed. "I don't want a drink; I want you to help me! So get your lazy ass off that couch before I kick it off."

Jordan smiled. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you such a buzz kill man?" he chuckled.

I groaned. "You are the most irresponsible, disgusting, obnoxious, person I have ever known!"

"S'all right, so long as I have my...uh...my..."

Justin left then, to move the bed into his new room.

* * *

The cabin was a two story mansion styled firm surrounded by trees on all sides. Leading up to the cabin was a quarter mile road, and on the road was smaller hunting cabins and the ranger's station. The smaller cabins consisted of one story, and five rooms. Justin had checked out those cabins and the ranger's station in the first half of the week. By the time Wednesday rolled around the cabins had been cleaned out of food. Within all these cabins and even in the ranger's station, no firearms had been found.

Over the next few days, Justin managed to get into a routine. First he would struggle out of bed, go across the rug floor, go to the lone empty closet where his C96 pistol lay (for days now he'd been calling it Broom Handle) and head out ignoring Jordan's drunken snores. He would then go into town with the truck and gather the limited supplies there until noon. Then he would head back to the house and make breakfast for the two, while Jordan pulled himself off the couch. After breakfast Justin would clean the dishes, use soap, and put them away. He would then head outside to do rounds keeping watch until the sun went down.

However on his fifth day out in the hot sun, (it was still September and the heat was still hanging on) he began to think. He thought back to the first day. In the small cabin that Justin had started to think of as a home. The room. The room that he hadn't opened. The room that was down the hall. For some reason he kept thinking about it. He couldn't get the room out of his head. Finally Justin did one last sweep of the perimeter making sure it was clear, and then headed up to the house. The cabin was dark. Darker than usual. He immediately headed to the living room. He assumed Jordan would be laying his lazy ass on the couch. He looked around the room. In less than 5 days the living room was a wreak. Liquor bottles were strewn about on the floor, pillows and blankets were littered all over the room. Justin shook his head. But there was no Jordan. That's when Justin thought maybe he was drunk and wandered to another part of the cabin. Justin thought whatever his brother was up to it wasn't good

'Doesn't matter.' He thought. 'I came inside to do something and that's what I plan to do.' Maybe it was for the best anyway. He didn't know what was behind the door and he didn't want Jordan finding out.

Suddenly something occurred to him. He had found a room on the upper floor that Jordan knew nothing about. So what did that mean? It meant that Justin wasn't going to show his brother anything upstairs. He didn't deserve to know. Justin took the stairs two at a time. He was eager to see what was behind that door. Maybe too eager. He didn't care. He NEEDED to find out what was in there. He got to the upper floor. He looked down the hall. The solid wooden door was there. He looked at it, stared at it taking in all the detail. The door was mahogany colored with four square outlines. The frame was a dark shade of brown, and the paint on the door was faded, the wood chipping away. The doorknob was a dark golden color. Justin stretched his arm toward the knob, his fingers unfolding, stretching toward the door handle. With trembling hands he grasped the door knob. He turned it ever so slightly-

Downstairs there was a shatter of glass and a loud yell that sounded like Jordan. Justin let go of the doorknob and rushed downstairs.

* * *

Jordan walked down the stairs. The wooden steps leading to the basement were old and creaky. He hated how they were. He was afraid they would break under his weight.

This basement reminded Jordan of their houses basement. The one he and Justin lived in when they were kids. He remembered the first time he had dared Justin to go in that basement. It had looked a lot like it did now, Dark and oppressing. Justin had told Jordan he didn't want to, because he was still afraid of monsters at that point.

"There are demons in the basement!" He had said. So just to be a jerk, Jordan had convinced some of his friends to go into the basement and wait there for Justin. Turns out Justin was down there the whole time, waiting to scare them. Jordan smiled at the memory.

He took another few stops down to the basement. Jordan was looking for something to drink. It had been a long day and he needed some whiskey or bourbon or even some vodka at this point.

He knew his drinking was a problem, but he had never done anything to stop it. He didn't know why, he just never needed to. His drinking never hurt anyone, or done any real permanent damage to him or anyone else. Actually he preferred getting drunk, than the alternative any day. But he didn't care about getting drunk. Other people did. And he hated that. Hated the pity that people gave. Almost more than he hated the way people shouted at him and sometimes threw things. Most important though, he hated getting mad.

For some reason whenever he got really mad at someone, bad stuff fallowed afterwards. He didn't know why. He would just get so angry and see red, then he would find out the person was in the hospital. It was because of this, Jordan had landed in prison. And he never knew what he really ever did.

Jordan had reached the basement floor. He clicked on the LED flashlight he held and scanned the room. He saw a washing machine that would never be run, a barrel full of cans that were never going to be recycled and a hamper full of laundry that would never be washed. He continued flashing the light around the basement. Against the wall was a wall full of power tools, and more to the left, a large Tv with a game console. To the right was a workshop. No liquor.

He then flashed the light again and caught sight of something that flashed back. He zeroed in on the object.

Jackpot. A wine rack. Bottles upon bottles of wine. He smiled and walked over. He lifted one and looked close at the label. He needed to get wasted, fast.

Suddenly something- a pusbag who'd been hiding in the shadows revealed itself and gabbed Jordan's arm causing him to yelp and drop the bottle. The bottle shattered and Jordan angrily pushed the cadaver to the floor. The pusbag snarled and Jordan raised his foot and curve stomped the snarling thing. Then out of nowhere, another came at him grabbing his tank top. Jordan had trouble pushing this one down. Somehow, the one on the floor was still moving, struggling to get up. It was stuck between its legs. If I wanted to it could simply sit up and bite his crotch, but apparently it was too stupid. The other snarled and snapped its teeth. Even in the dim light, Jordan could see the droop dripping from it unspeaking mouth. He managed to hold back the monster as it tried to reach his jugular.

Behind him he could hear the sound of footsteps on wooden stairs. Justin had arrived.

* * *

Justin stood at the foot of the stairs, staring at the scene. "What the-?"

"Help me!" Jordan yelled. He was holding a snarling sleepwalker by her wrists, keeping her away from his throat. Below him, between his legs, another sleepwalker was snapping his jaws weakly, but making no attempt- no effort - to bite him.

Justin drew his gun. He hesitated when he saw the one on the floor. But after hesitation, the gun barked and the barrel kicked, smoke rising up in curls. The sleepwalker's blood spread on the floor like water.

He raised the gun again. The two- the walker and Jordan- still struggled. Justin pointed the gun at the walker. Then he realized something. One shot. One shot to the head and it would all be over. Jordan would expire and Justin wouldn't have to take care of him. Wouldn't have to deal with him. He could hear his heart pumping, much louder than how it did upstairs. Jordan didn't notice. He put a little more pressure on the trigger. He then then turned the gun to the left, and pulled the trigger.

* * *

With a grunt Jordan tossed the final body on the pile of them the brothers had collected throughout the whole house. The bodies were rank and Jordan was eager to burn them. With a sigh he turned to Justin, who was staring at the pile with an expression Jordan couldn't make out. He rarely could tell what Justin was thinking. Usually he came right out and said what he was feeling. Especially when they were kids. The McCain Brothers had been close for a good portion of their childhood. Now...Jordan was ashamed to say the brother that he had known for years, he barely knew anymore.

"Well that's it." Jordan said.

"Yeah." Justin mumbled, still poker faced.

"You ok man?" Jordan asked, looking deep into Justin's face. looking for any expression.

Justin shrugged.

Jordan sighed. He tried. "Well if this little shindig is over, I'm going to get wasted." he looked at Justin. "your welcome to join. Plenty of booze to go around."

Justin swallowed. "We should say something."

Jordan was confused. "About what?"

"Them." Justin inclined his head towards the pile of bodies.

Jordan narrowed his eyes at his brother. "They're not people, Justin."

"They were." Justin stared at his brother. "How could you he so cold hearted. You've always been that way." he paused, thought, and then continued. "What if it was dad in that pile? Or mom?"

Jordan stared at the ground. He couldn't believe Justin was thinking that much into this. "You are such a pain in the ass." Jordan turned back to the pile.

"Um...here lies a pile of bodies. Before they lived good full lives. At least we assume they did and now...well now their dead. And it sucks. So God almighty let these poor fellas up to heaven. Unless they were like serial killers or something and they got what they deserved." Justin shot a glare at Jordan. "So…um...let them rest in peace. Let them be with their friends and family.. and neighbors..and..coworkers ..and..." Jordan was surprised when he felt a small tear fall off his cheek. He wiped it away roughly. "So yeah thanks. Uh amen. Huzzah." He sighed. "Ok _now_ I'm getting wasted."

Justin was still staring at the bodies. The gasoline that Justin had brought from the rangers station sat near he fire. He picked it up and started soaking the pile with the gas. He took a match, lit it and threw it on. The gasoline lit up with flames and the bodies started to burn. Justin stared at the fire as if he could see his soul burning with it. Finally he looked up. "I think I'll have that drink now." He said in a hoarse voice.

* * *

Jordan refilled his glass on the couch. Justin was sitting across from him on a stool also holding a glass. It was strange for Justin, sitting there sharing a drink with Jordan. Like the Twilight Zone. More strange he could feel the drink affecting him, giving him a slight buzz.

"Haven't had a drink in eight years." Justin murmured.

"Then you're overdue." Jordan took a swing from the glass and smacked his lips, enjoying the taste of the 30 year old wine. He refilled the glass then offered the bottle to Justin. The brother accepted the bottle and put a hearty ammount of wine in the glass. He then looked at the bottle and, after putting the glass down, took a long 10 second drink from the bottle. He then offered it back to Jordan, who accepted it then took a swing himself.

Jordan broke the silence. "Always thought you were more of a light weight."

Justin shrugged. "I dunno. Whenever I was with Katrina I didn't drink. None of the guys around the office ever went out drinking, as far as I know so I never really drank with the guys..." he paused and took a sip from his glass. "You know the last drink I really ever had was with dad."

"Last drink I had with someone," Jordan said, "was a prostitute at an ACDC concert."

The brothers looked at one another and started laughing. For a minute they couldn't stop. Maybe it was the relief of safety, or the drink, but whatever the case the two siblings couldn't control their fits of laughing. Finally the men controlled their chortling, and continued their conversation.

Jordan spoke first. "So who's Katrina? She your squeeze?"

Justin nodded. "Yeah. Wouldn't put it quite like that but yeah. We're together."

"Where is she?"

"Not sure. Haven't seen her since I got out of Atlanta."

Jordan sighed. "Sorry man."

"Don't be." Justin said. "She's alive."

"You don't know that."

"Well I survived. Why not her?"

"Huh. Good point." Jordan joked.

Justin sighed. "Neither of us is drunk enough for this conversation."

Jordan nodded. "Agreed."

The two brothers raised their glasses to drink when upstairs was a loud thump.

"What was that?" Jordan asked, fully alert and clearly alarmed.

'Uh oh.' Justin thought. "Probably nothing." He said aloud.

"Didn't sound like nothing." Jordan's eyes scanned across the room and landed on his axe, leaning against the wall next to the door. He got up and marched across the room, snatched up the axe and stormed to the foot of the stairs.

"Look man. It was probably just the house settling. Let's just have a few drinks, huh?" Justin pried trying to get Jordan's attention away from the second floor.

"I'll be right back." Jordan said and started walking up the stairs.

"Come on man..." Justin pleaded getting up, and going over to his brother.

"What are you hiding?" Jordan demanded.

"Nothing."

Jordan stared at his brother. "Justin. What. Are. You. Hiding.?"

"Nothing at all I swear! I have no idea what's up there!" He said. Technically, he wasn't lying.

"Well I'm going to find out." Jordan sneered.

"Jordan..."

"Grow a pair! Just stop being such a punk ass wimp!" He yelled the anger in his voice growing.

Justin opened his mouth to say something. Anything. But he couldn't. His brother was right. He was a wimp. He didnt have the balls to open the door.

"Okay. Let's go check it out."

* * *

The upper floor was weird to Jordan. He spent most of his time in the cabin on the couch, not exploring most of the house. That was Justin's job really. He didn't care if the cabin looked nice as long as it was secure. Safe. That's all it came down to now was safety.

Back at the stairs he didn't know what came over him. How he had shouted at his brother. He had a good afternoon with his brother, one that he hadn't had in a long time. Now it felt he had just severed that cord of likeness between himself and his brother. He would apologize later. Maybe.

The room that Justin had said he hadn't investigated was right down the narrow hall. Jordan walked slowly over the wooden floor, hearing his footsteps on creaky wood, his brother close behind. The door was closed. It was mahogany colored wood with a golden doorknob. Jordan reached out and twisted the knob and pushed. The door swung inwardly easily.

It was a bathroom. It was oceanic style, the wallpaper a mixed color of dark and light blue. A towel hung from a hook, and the mat on the floor which was supposed to be lined up with the tub, was ajar. Justin breathed out softly. Jordan's eyes locked onto the shower curtain which hid he tub. Jordan grabbed the corner of the curtain and with flourish ripped it from the bar holding it up. Sitting cross-legged in the tub, holding a small stub nose pistol was a little girl.


	2. Episode Two: All We Deliver

Jordan stared at the little girl, as did Justin and the little girl stared right back. a million thoughts raced through Jordan's head. Who was this little girl? Why was she here? Where were the parents? How long had she been here? Where did she get a gun?

Jordan reached his right hand towards the girl, hoping she would take it. Jordan had no intention to hurt this little girl. She had to be cared for. Without parents, in a world like this, she wouldn't survive very long.

"Hey there kiddo." Jordan said in a soothing voice, "Come on. Don't be scared. We're going to take care of you. We're-" his question was cut off when the little girl lunged forward, and chomped down on Jordan's index finger. Jordan screamed in the sudden pain.

Blood streamed down the girls cheeks and bit down harder. Jordan screamed louder. The girl spit something out onto the bathroom tile and took off between the brothers, going out the door and fleeing the cabin. Justin looked down at the thing that she spit out.

Jordan's finger.

* * *

Justin stared in horror at the finger, rolling around on the bloody tile. Justin was in a sort of trance, as he stared at the severed finger. He could hear Jordan's screams of pain in the back of his mind, and it sounded muffled, like Justin was hearing the screams underwater.

That's when Justin came back to the present, and Jordan's screams became loud once again. His older brother was yelling his name.

"Justin!" Jordan yelled his voice a mixture of pain and anger. "What the hell are you doing? GO GET HER!"

"wha-?" Justin asked stupidly.

"**GO**!" Jordan roared.

Justin ran out of the bathroom, sailed down the staircase, and went out the open door in less than ten seconds.

* * *

Justin wasn't a tracker. He couldn't study the trail for the girl's footprints. He couldn't look for broken sticks or trampled leaves. So instead, Justin ran. To where he didn't know. He knew he was physically running to find the girl but he couldn't figure out why. Was he afraid of his brother? He didn't know. He certainly wasn't comfortable with the tone of his brothers' voice a minute ago. He wondered how Jordan would react if Justin didn't return with the girl. 'he isn't going to be happy.' Justin thought. 'That I know.'

Justin was surprised when off to his left a sleepwalker stumbled stupidly out of the brush and lunged at Justin. the brother fell and stumbled away from the beast. The thing crawled towards him, trying to get a hold of his boot. its jaws snapped angrily and it lunged again. Justin kicked it causing the sleepwalkers neck to snap and this gave Justin time to get away.

'Ok.' Justin thought. 'Back to business.'

That's when behind Justin he heard the sound of a girls shriek and three quick revolver shots.

* * *

AJ had dealt with a lot for the past week alone. She had to kill zombies, deal with the deaths of her parents, cross speeding rivers where the current took her downstream and then, waiting downstream would be more zombies. She had to camp out in a bathroom so the strangers there wouldn't find her and had to bite off a finger to escape.

But wolves? This was new.

They were big for one thing. They were about 2 feet taller than her if they were standing up. They were brown with silvery eyes and had long canine teeth. There were about 5 of them and they looked very hungry.

She had 3 rounds in her revolver.

The wolves had been in the clearing when she showed up. She had managed to escape some zombies, only to come across something much more dangerous.

The wolves silvery eyes locked on her. They snarled and pawed the dirt. Their mouths watered, drool dripped off their teeth. She raised her gun.

'Don't shoot unless they do something first.' AJ thought.

At the exact moment as she thought that, the first wolf up front- possibly the leader -pounced. she didn't hesitate to pull the trigger. The wolf died in mid-air and landed heavily on top of her. The other wolves attacked.

The first wolf lunged at her side. She felt a tugging motion. She shot wildly and then felt herself being dragged out from under the wolf. She felt the wolf chomp down on her leg and she cried out. The wolf dragged her out and she felt a tearing pain in her leg. She knew then, what was coming. She was surrounded by wolves, out of bullets. She knew this was where she would die. The wolf loomed over her.

Then the wolf was shot in the head. It fell next to AJ and she sucked in a breath. The other wolves looked surprised at the five foot three skinny boy with a wisp of a beard holding a C96 pistol, it smoking at the barrel. He blinked and shot again killing another wolf. the others got the message, turned and ran, their tails between their legs. The man put his gun in his belt, and ran over to AJ.

"You ok kiddo?" the stranger asked.

"I...I think so." she murmured. she could still feel her heart pumping, her legs shaking, the adrenalin fading away. "That was really scary."

"Yeah it was." he agreed. He looked down at her leg. "That looks bad."

She looked down now. The leg had twelve bite marks and had punctured the skin allowing it to bleed. It looked nasty.

"Come on kiddo. Looks like that could use some cleaning up."

"Oh...I don't know..." she felt unsure. She didn't want to trust these people. But she had no choice. If the wound wasn't properly cleaned it would get infected and she could get sick. "Just to clean it up?"

He smiled reassuringly. "Just to clean it up." he promised.

* * *

Justin didn't know what to make of the girl. After he introduced himself, she told him a great deal of her encounters and experiences, almost all taking place in the past week alone. She was small and yet she survived a lot. More than the two brothers had survived. And it sounded like she had found the house only a few hours after the brothers had.

"I got out of Atlanta a few weeks ago." she explained. "Whole place was overrun. You should have seen it. I got separated from my parents in that city. After I got out, I took a spill on a bridge. It was an old wooden one. It collapsed and I managed to get myself to shore. Only there were more zombies there. I killed them with a stick! Can you believe it? Only a stick. it was soo cool you should have seen it." she paused then continued. "I found this cabin after about a week of just walking. But after all that walking I just wanted something to eat. I decided to stay in the cabin cuz it was full of food. Then you two came. By the way I hope your friend won't be mad at me for biting off his finger. I only did it to protect myself. Oh yeah I'm AJ by the way."

The girl was a talker. But he was happy to listen. He was interested for sure. He wondered if AJ was going to stay with them or if she was going to pass on through. She was pretty good company, for sure.

"Here we are. The cabin." Justin smiled, looking up at the cabin.

"Um...Mr. Justin?" AJ said.

"Yeah?"

"Uh...whose car is that?" she was pointing at an unfamiliar Chevy Cherokee parked in the dirt driveway.

Justin frowned. "The hell?"

He walked over to the car, AJ fallowing close behind. He peered inside the car. Nothing in the car was familiar.

"Yeah...this isn't one of our cars.''

"Then...whose is it?" She asked.

Justin realized something then. "Oh no." he muttered and ran inside, AJ still fallowing close behind.

'Were they being robbed?' Justin thought. 'Oh god what is going to happen if Jordan's there?'

Justin and AJ burst through the front door. The first thing Justin heard was the awful sound of silence. The first thing he could smell was a bitter smell of sour fluids. and the first thing he saw was blood. There was an eccentric pattern of blood through the living room floor and walls there was bloody hand prints. in the foyer there was stains of scarlet slashed onto the carpeting. On the stairs was a waterfall of blood. The most graphic part of the whole horrific scene was the body parts thrown around the room. There were arms, legs, palms, fingers, and torsos that looked like they had been hacked at with a meat cleaver.

The two moved onto the next room. Sitting in a puddle of their own blood there was three heads on the table. AJ vomited and Justin had her avert her eyes away. he looked at her, into her eyes.

"AJ I want you to go outside. Don't run, just stay there. I have to find out what's going on." Justin said firmly, trying not to vomit himself.

"What happened here?" she asked, clearly frightened.

"I'm not sure. I'm going to find out." he assured.

"Be careful" she whispered.

"You too kiddo."

The girl turned to leave and Justin did as well. He took one last look at the heads on the table, tried unsuccessfully to get the image out of his head, and headed into the living room.

* * *

The living room was covered in blood and innards strewn all over the room. The couch had stains and there was a bloody clever next to a shaking hand with four fingers. The hand belonged to Jordan. He trembled and shuttered. He was covered in blood and it dripped off his fingers and head. He had smears off gore all over his one white t-shirt.

"Jordan?" Justin muttered. "You ok?

"I..."

"What happened here?"

"I..." he seemed to be incoherent, unable to form words.

"What happened brother?" Justin persisted.

The word 'brother' seemed to snap Jordan out of it. Or rather, now he could talk.

"I don't know what happened." he said. "I don't remember."

"What can you remember?"

"Nothing. The last thing I remember is you leaving as I went to the bathroom to fix up my hand. I was so mad…"

Justin stared at his brother in a new way. What happened in the house was sick, and this kind of murder only happened in stories and movies. It wasn't possible. His brother couldn't have killed these people. He wasn't capable of this kind of murder.

Justin knew that his brother had been sent to life in prison, but Jordan wouldn't say, in the past two weeks of them being together, what he had supposedly done to land there. Now Justin was truly afraid of what atrocity had occurred in this cabin, and worried about what his brother was capable of.

"Come on brother. Let's get this cleaned up." Justin pried.

"No." Jordan muttered. "Pack your shit. We're leaving."

"Leaving? Where?"

"Atlanta." He quietly replied.

"Atlanta? But Jordan we can't. We've got a good thing here."

"Don't ask questions. Just do as I say." he whispered in a dangerous tone.

"but-" he stopped talking when Jordan looked up to glare at him.

Justin ran upstairs and packed his bag.

* * *

Jordan looked up at the old cabin he had come to call home. He now wanted to call it hell. All three of them- even the girl AJ- had all agreed that what had occurred wouldn't be spoken of again.

All Jordan knew was the men that had broken in were bandits. Thieves. They had come to take what they had and so Jordan had to stop them. End of story.

AJ loaded a suitcase with some clothes into the back of the bandits Cherokee. After they had fixed up AJ's leg, the trio decided to take the Chevy because it was in better shape than the hatchback they were driving.

Justin loaded his duffle into the trunk and slammed it shut. He nodded at Jordan and got into the passenger's side while Jordan drove. Usually Jordan was too drunk to drive but he was sober now. He hadn't had a drink all morning.

Jordan slammed the driver's door shut, put the key into the ignition and put the car in reverse. He swerved out of the driveway, and gunned down the road. The only person, who didn't look back, was Jordan.


	3. Episode Three: On Darker Ground

When the Cherokee ran out of gas, AJ almost wasn't surprised. About a mile from the cabin, she had noticed the gas meter was low but due to the extreme tension between the brothers, she decided not to say anything. She had noticed the brothers weren't speaking. They both seemed lost in thought and AJ couldn't decide who was more lost in thought. But the brothers snapped out of zoning out when the engine sputtered and died.

"Oh crap." Jordan said eloquently.

Justin looked out the passenger side window. "It's not so bad. We've got cars on all sides. We can just siphon the gas."

Jordan nodded. "Alright then, I'll get the hose and you can get to it."

Justin frowned. "Me?"

"Yeah. Don't you know how to siphon gas?" Jordan asked.

"I'm a twenty eight year old lawyer. How on earth would I know how to siphon gas through a tube from a car?"

"Ok then...guess we are walking." Justin sighed.

"We can't walk to Atlanta." AJ complained, "it's too cold."

"Looks like we gonna have to suck it up kid." Jordan said getting out of the car. "Everyone out."

While the trio collected their stuff from the trunk AJ studied the brothers. She particularly glanced at Jordan's bandaged four fingered left hand. She still couldn't believe that she had bitten off his finger. She also couldn't believe that Jordan had forgiven her and forgotten about it so fast. She assumed he just didn't want to talk about it.

She didn't really trust the brothers completely yet. She liked Justin more because she knew him better and he was nice to her. So far she had no reason to trust Jordan. Yet.

The resemblance between the two brothers was remarkable, they looked exactly alike. They both had dark black hair, blue eyes, tall builds, and similar facial features. They could have been twins, if there hadn't been a ten year difference between them. Justin had a calm air about him, with his wispy beard, starting to really grow in now, and shorter hair. Jordan on the other hand was a foot taller that Justin, with a much more muscular builds, in his sleeveless tank top and cameo army jeans. His hair was long and messy, hippie styled. He had a long lumberjack beard and his arms were hairy and long, like gorilla arms. So basically AJ was traveling with Harrison Ford and a buff Jesus.

She still couldn't get the images of the blood graffiti smeared all over inside the cabin out of her mind. The scarlet fluids flicked across the walls and floor like some twisted painting. The heads on the table...

She shuttered. 'Don't think about it.'

The road they were on was long, strait, and seemed to go on forever. There were trees on both sides of the road, along with cars. She looked at the road ahead. Atlanta had to be another 50 miles or so. No way would they hoof it there.

Jordan shouldered his duffle bag that smelled like old gym socks and a really bad brand of cologne. He took AJs bag out which was a small white backpack and handed it to her. It was simple and it was a birthday present from her dad.

She loved her dad. She always had. And she hoped that he would be in Atlanta. That was the only reason she had agreed to accompany the brothers on this road trip to Atlanta. She thought that maybe he had to go to the city for some reason, and wait for AJ there. She hoped that he was in the city.

She remembered what her father looked like. He was tall, about 6 feet, and was always clean shaven. He smelled of sweet smelling cologne that reminded AJ of her mother. He always had a good thing to say about anyone, rarely complained, even in the worst of times.

She loved her dad mostly because he had been a single parent, raising her in a crummy trailer park, where he had struggled with paying the bills, and just barely getting by. Nevertheless he always had food on the table for her and a smile on his face. She wished he was here with them now.

It was then, that AJ tripped.

* * *

Justin helped AJ to her feet. She must have been lost in thought, and wasn't watching where she was going.

Justin could relate. He had been thinking pretty hard for the past hour too. He had been trying to get the images of the scarlet painted cabin out of his head, but he couldn't. The pictures were imbedded into his brain. He wished he could turn back the clocks and start the day, the week over again. But he couldn't. And now, he had to look out for his group. He had to do as Jordan had told him to do, which was step up and stop being such a pansy.

The trio walked.

What seemed like hours later, and the car wasn't on the highways horizon anymore, Jordan spoke.

"Here looks like a good place." He muttered. It seemed like he was telling himself rather than the whole group.

"For what?" Justin asked, looking skeptically around. There was nothing around but a forest, and a Smart car that had been run off the road.

"The night." Jordan said flatly.-

"Camp out in the open?" AJ muttered. "Doesn't sound very safe."

"We'll be fine." Jordan said. "One sleeps in the car, one keeps watch on top and one patrols the area."

"Doesn't sound safe." Justin muttered.

"Whatever." Jordan grumbled. "Do what you want. I don't care."

"Clearly." Justin mumbled.

"Will you two stop?" AJ scolded. "You're both giving me a headache."

"Fine." Justin said firmly. "Come on AJ, let's set up camp."

* * *

Jordan stared into the fire that he'd put together. It wasn't big, because the trio didn't want to attract any unwanted attention, but it was enough to keep them warm.

They all sat on the ground, in a circle around the fire. Justin was trying to get a Wi-Fi connection on his iPod Touch, AJ was sharpening a stick using her multi-tool knife, and Jordan was stoking the fire with his axe.

Jordan pulled the axe out of the flames and studied it. It was a simple design. It was about two feet and had a flat silver blade, which was slightly tinged in red. The handle was silicone so it wouldn't catch fire, and the axe itself wasn't heavy. Still the thing was getting worn out and used, and Jordan thought that maybe he should ditch it like they did the truck. Then again, the axe had sentimental value. He had killed his first zombie with it. Ok maybe not a lot of sentimental value, but more than that stupid truck.

But he did want to separate from the axe because he was pretty sure that axe had killed the men that had come to the cabin. He knew now that the murderer of the men had been him. He just didn't want to tell Justin or AJ. He couldn't tell them.

His legs were still sore from all that walking down the highway. He just wanted to fall into a mattress and go to sleep. He was sure his feet had blisters.

AJ sighed. "I'm going to sleep."

Justin got up. "I'll set up the cab in the Smart car for you."

AJ made a face. "I'm not sleeping in that thing." She picked up her sleeping bag and went to the woods. "I'll take the trees."

"You're not sleeping under a tree." Justin said, stepping in front of her.

"Not under." AJ went around the younger brother. "In."

Jordan watched with minor interest as AJ went over to the closest tree and hoisted herself up onto the closest branch. She grunted and reached out to grab another branch, lifted herself onto the next branch. She continued to climb until she was about thirteen feet off the ground. She lied herself onto the branch, took something small and shiny out of her bag, smiled in a sort of melancholy way and leaned back, falling asleep.

"Is she gonna be ok up there?" Justin asked, clearly worried.

"She'll be fine man. She survived in a bathroom for a week eating nothing but toothpaste and toilet water. Then on top of that she bit off a finger and ran two miles." Jordan smiled. "She's tough. I like it." Then suddenly he scowled. "Unlike my own brother."

Justin frowned, looking down at his older brother. "We're back to this?"

"Yep." Jordan turned coals in the fire, using the axe. "We are. No matter how long we'll be in this situation, you need to learn how to swing an axe and kill a zombie. It easy for me cuz I've killed before. But you, you've never killed anything besides a deer. Even then you had remorse." He looked up from the flames, and to Justin it looked like Jordan had fire in his eyes himself. "You can't have remorse anymore. You can't let your humanity get in the way. You have to let go of that regret. Rip away from it. Sever your new self from your old self."

Justin sat down next to his brother. "How? How do you make a choice like that?"

Jordan stared into the fire. "A switch." He muttered. "The switch, the one that tells you right from wrong." He paused. "And you flip it. Do what's right, even if its wrong."

Justin said nothing.

Jordan said nothing.

Jordan got to his feet. "That's all for today kids."

Justin still said nothing, and stared straight ahead.

* * *

Jordan turned the key in the ignition, and the engine spluttered, started for a minute and after a moment of great victory, died again.

"Damnit!" Jordan hit the steering wheel in mild anger, and got out of the drivers seat.

"Still won't start?" Justin asked.

"I don't know why." Jordan confirmed. "The thing was working fine this morning."

It had been almost two hours since the trio had packed up camp and continued onto Atlanta, where they would locate the safe zone and move on.

They had continued on foot, until AJ had spotted a box truck. They had found the thing parked on the side of the road and had used it to cover a lot of ground. However just as they got to a massive car wreak, the truck broke down, which apparently had a faulty ignition and radiator.

"Can you fix it?" Justin asked, clearly worried.

"Yeah, if I had the right tools," Jordan grumbled, "and anything besides a flat head."

"There's a philips head in the truck." Justin said.

"I ment you, you flathead." Jordan smiled, taking in the humor in the joke.

"Oh you assho-"

"Ok boys. Stop fighting." AJ interrupted. "Seriously, you two are giving me a headache."

"Fine." Jordan muttered. "AJ look around for a flathead screwdriver. Well use it to fix the hose."

"Sure. You two don't kill each other while I'm gone."

AJ turned and, with a slight air about her, went to check out some of the close cars.

"Sweet kid." Jordan joked.

"Will you be serious for once?" Justin demanded.

Jordan shrugged. "Can't do that. Otherwise I wouldn't be Jordan."

Justin sighed and stalked off to find AJ.

Jordan went back to the truck. As he worked, he thought. He figured that, usually, it take a human body about two months to decompose. Plus add the fact that some fool will most likely get bitten within a month long radius. Thus this apocalyptic world would likely last about 10 years.

Jordan didn't know if he could stay on the road with a wimpy lawyer, or a 5 year old brat for ten years.

Then again, tomorrow, everything could change. The apocalypse could change for them, for better or worse. This time tomorrow, they would be in Atlanta, finding out what the situation there was.

"holy crap!" Justin's voice rang out in the sea of cars.

"what is- OH WOW!" AJ's voice proceeded behind his.

Jordan sighed, annoyed now and headed toward their voices. he worked his way through the cars and shattered glass, until he finally found AJ and Justin standing in front of a car. in Justin's hands he cradled what looked like a stick or an umbrella. he then turned to Jordan, an the brothers eyes raised in surprise, staring at the beauty in Justin's arms. the thing was about two feet long, made of solid mahogany and iron, had a tan strap , and smelled of gun powder.

"its a hunting rifle." Justin smiled and slung it across his shoulder. "pretty nice huh?"

"I'll say." Jordan stared at the rifle in awe. "That thing it beautiful."

"Hell yeah. and shes all mine."

Jordan snorted. "That's funny bud. Freaking hilarious. Now hand it over."

"No way! I found it, so i get to keep it." Justin sounded like a five year old, not wanting to give up his toy.

"Justin, no offense, but that rifle isn't that little toy gun you carry around in your pants. This is a serious weapon." Jordan frowned. "Now lets go junior, hand over the big boy gun."

Justin's eyes flashed. "FUCK YOU JORDAN!"

Jordan stared at his brother, surprised at his outburst.

"Whoa." AJ muttered.

Justin breathed hard. He felt his eyes bulging out of his head. He finally found it. The courage to nut up and face Jordan. Even if it was over the own age of a gun.

In truth he didn't care about the gun. He probably would let Jordan take it, simply because Justin had no need for the rifle. But he was tired of Jordan's cocky, older bother attitude.

Justin was done being pushed around.

"You've always done this! Treat me like a child! Well I don't need this! Not from you! I should be the one who gets on your case, not you getting on mine. YOU WERN'T EVEN THERE WHEN MOM AND DAD DIED!"

The brothers stared at each other. The tension in the air was so thick, you could almost see it. For a solid minute not a word was spoken. Jordan looked intimidated almost frightened, by Justin's outburst. Jordan was almost afraid because he hadn't even the slightest idea of what his brother was capable of.

'One wrong word might set him off.' Jordan thought. Finally he opened his mouth to speak. But he took a look behind Justin, saw what was there, how many and instead of saying anything to repel his bothers outburst, yelled, "Herd!"

Justin and AJ, who had both had their backs turned to the army of the undead, spun around. "Shit!" Justin yelled and spun around and shot the rifle off. The blast echoed across the highway and sounded like a whip being cracked. One of the walkers in the herd fell to the ground, but getting shot in the stomach, staggered to its feet again.

The herd was massive. There looked to be at least twenty, though Jordan could've sworn there were more. They moved slowly, limping towards their prey. The herd moved not in unison, but in a drunk, lanky way. Their bodies swayed and they hung their arms like the appendages didn't have bones or muscle and were simply annoying bags or flesh. Their bodies stank like mixture of sewer water and dead fish along with cat pee, human bile, and rotten food. As the herd approached the three survivors, their signature moans began, and with every step, more in the herd joined in making it louder, calling their fellow brethren, lurking in the shadows close by.

* * *

AJ had her share of bad days. She had been in her share of danger. She had seen more zombies than she could count on one hand. She had killed only a short number of them. She thought she had killed at least four, but that didn't seem right. Maybe five. No wait, now she remembered, she had killed twenty –two. Yep that was it.

Even in all that though, she had never seen so many walkers in one space. The sheer enormity of their vast undead army was enough to give the World Champion Zombie Killer a heart attack.

"Run!" Jordan shouted, and that was an understatement. The group obliged, sprinting through the labyrinth of totaled cars, broken class, oil, and flat tires.

His shout had riled the army up. They snarled with undead glee and limped their way after the trio of survivors they referred to as dinner. Their walking sounded like every step hurt them. Their tattered clothes once in a while caught on a stray bit of window glass or a bumper that was hanging off the vehicles axel and got torn.

"What's the plan?" AJ shouted, adrenaline pumping through her veins.

Jordan didn't answer for a minute, which made AJ worried, but finally he stopped, looked behind them, saw how many walkers there were, and pointed towards the trees. "Head for the woods guys. It's our best bet."

"But our stuff…?" AJ trailed off when she saw the box truck, behind where they just were. She could see Jordan's wrench that he was using, resting on the hood of a nearby car.

"We got to leave it," Jordan replied, "too dangerous to go back."

"But-" She started to protest but Justin cut her off.

"They're getting closer!" he yelled.

Jordan turned to AJ and gripped her shoulders. "AJ run to the woods. Justin will be right behind you."

AJ realized what he was saying. "We're not going to leave you!"

"No way in hell." Justin agreed.

"I'll be fine," Jordan sounded confident, but his eyes had worry, "I'm going to distract them, so they don't fallow you two into the woods."

"but-," AJ stopped herself, and nodded, "okay."

Jordan smiled. "You're alright kid. Just remember that. You're alright."

"Their closer…" Justin mumbled urgently.

AJ took a quick look. Behind them, still focused on getting their prey, the walkers growled and snarled after them, not 100 yards away.

"Go quickly!" Jordan pushed her gently towards the woods. As AJ stumbled down the slope leading into the trees, she heard Jordan say to Justin, "we'll talk later."

'Hopefully,' she thought as she pushed off a tree and started to run to the woods, 'for all of us there is a later.'

Justin was mad. Already, Jordan had ditched them to go on some suicide mission to get the walkers away from the weaker ones in the group. Finally he had the guts to take on Jordan and then fate sends a huge pack of walkers to distract them.

He felt like God just gave him the finger.

Justin knew better though. He knew the walkers would have fallowed them into the woods. Then what? They would have had to run all night through endless woods. Ok, maybe not endless, but nonetheless, Justin was still pissed about their situation. He was constantly pissed about their situation.

Ahead of Justin, AJ was trooping ahead, scouting the area and making sure there were no more walkers. Or worse. She looked bad. Kids her age should be in school, happy and clean faced. Not dirty, and wearing an expression close to that of a rabid mongrel. She held her knife in her right hand and had her hair tied in a pony- tail. Justin didn't know if that was scary or if seeing her like this made him less afraid of what was out in these woods. He was glad she wasn't against them anymore.

"See anything?" Justin asked.

She shook her head. "Its clear."

"Ok. Keep low though. We don't know what's out here."

She nodded and fell back, next to the youngest McCain brother. "So what's the plan?"

Justin thought. He was new to the whole 'leader' thing. "I guess we make our way back to the main road. Jordan didn't really say if we were meeting anywhere. So I assume we head back."

"Yeah," AJ replied, "that's a good plan. First we should-," AJ trailed off when she spotted something off to Justin's left. He saw it two. Whatever it was it was large, orange and silky.

"Come on." Justin muttered. "Lets check it out."

The two worked their way through the trees, and untangled the brambles that managed to wrap around them while trying to get to the orange thing.

It was a camp. It was in the middle of a clearing, with a small stream flowing through it. The orange silk thing was a survival tent, the kind someone would get at a sports shop. There was a blue tarp over their heads which covered most of he camp. Under the tarp there was the tent, but also a crude looking table, that was serving as some sort of work bench. The bench had several simple tools, like hammers and screwdrivers, but also a can opener, which Justin thought was strange and out of place, along with several open cans of tuna and Speggetti-Os The clearing was small. Beer cans littered the ground along with other paraphernalia like fast food wrappers and banana peels. A small fire pit sat at the corner of the camp, the only area not covered by the artificial canopy.

Justin turned to AJ and put a finger to his lips, gesturing for her to be silent. She nodded in understanding and hung back while Justin went for the orange tent. He drew his pistol from his back pants and approached the tent silently. He leaned forward, and reached out to the tents zipper, slowly opening the tent. He peered inside. Justin saw a green cot with a musty blanket, making it look sort of cleaned up, but it didn't help much. There was a huge hamper that was open,he contents inside revealed. Justin peered inside and found a large supply of food. Under the cot, a pair of large, muddy, leather boots sat, abandoned. Justin headed back outside. He noticed AJ and nodded for her permission to search the camp.

AJ picked up the can of tuna and smelled it. She recoiled slightly, probably due to the smell. "Doesn't smell fresh," she reported, "but I cant totally be sure with tuna."

"You think someone might still live here?" Justin ventured, stumbling out of the tent. The lawyer had never been much of a camper.

"That or they abondoned this place at some point recently." AJ guessed.

"You think they might come back?"

AJ snorted. "Well whatever the case, we're not gonna be here to find out, are we?"

"Too late for that ladies and gentlemen." A mans voice said.

The pair turned so fast to the voice. Behind them, someone stepped into the clearing. It was a man, clad in a hunting vest, and holding a bow, and had a deer gutted and slung over his shoulder. He had black hair but covered it with a regular baseball cap on backwards. He wore silvery sunglasses, so his eyes were hidden, the scars on his hands and cheeks suggesting he had been in more than a few fights, and his smile made him look like a full blow trouble maker.

"Names Andrew Bullock." The hunter narrowed his eyes. "Now, what are you pricks doing in my camp?"


End file.
